Cling in weak terror to its earthly chain,
And from the dizzy brink recoil, in vain;
He that hath seen the last convulsive throe
Dissolve the union form'd and clos'd in woe,
Well knows, that hour is awful.-In the pride
Of youth and health, by sufferings yet untried,
We talk of Death, as something, which 'twere sweet
In Glory's arms exultingly to meet,

A closing triumph, a majestic scene,

Where gazing nations watch the hero's mien,
As, undismay'd amidst the tears of all,

He folds his mantle, regally to fall!

"Hush, fond enthusiast!-still, obscure, and lone, Yet not less terrible because unknown,

Is the last hour of thousands-they retire

From life's throng'd path, unnotic'd to expire,
As the light leaf, whose fall to ruin bears
Some trembling insect's little world of cares,
Descends in silence-while around waves on
The mighty forest, reckless what is gone!
Such is man's doom—and, ere an hour be flown,
-Start not, thou trifler!—such may be thine own.
"But as life's current in its ebb draws near
The shadowy gulph, there wakes a thought of fear,
A thrilling thought, which, haply mock'd before,
We fain would stifle-but it sleeps no more!
There are, who fly its murmurs midst the throng,
That join the masque of revelry and song,
Yet still Death's image, by its power restor❜d,
Frowns midst the roses of the festal board,
And, when deep shades o'er earth and ocean brood,
And the heart owns the might of solitude,
Is its low whisper heard?—a note profound,
But wild and startling as the trumpet-sound,
That bursts, with sudden blast, the dead repose
Of some proud city, storm'd by midnight foes!
"Oh! vainly reason's scornful voice would prove
That life hath nought to claim such lingering love,
And ask, if e'er the captive, half unchain'd,
Clung to the links which yet his step restrain'd?
In vain philosophy, with tranquil pride,

Would mock the feelings she perchance can hide,
Call up the countless armies of the dead,

Point to the pathway beaten by their tread,

And say- What wouldst thou? Shall the fix'd decree, Made for creation, be revers'd for thee?'

-Poor, feeble aid !-proud Stoic! ask not why,

It is enough, that nature shrinks to die!

Enough, that horror, which thy words upbraid,

Is her dread penalty, and must be paid!

66

-Search thy deep wisdom, solve the scarce defin'd
And mystic questions of the parting mind,

Half check'd, half utter'd—tell her, what shall burst

In whelming grandeur, on her vision first,

When freed from mortal films ?-what viewless world
Shall first receive her wing, but half unfurl'd?
What awful and unbodied beings guide
Her timid flight thro' regions yet untried?
Say, if at once, her final doom to hear,
Before her God the trembler must appear,
Or wait that day of terror, when the sea

Shall yield its hidden dead, and heaven and earth shall flee?
Hast thou no answer?-then deride no more

The thoughts that shrink, yet cease not to explore

Th' unknown, th' unseen, the future-tho' the heart,

As at unearthly sounds, before them start,

Tho' the frame shudder, and the spirit sigh,..

They have their source in immortality!" (P. 24—28.)

We wish we had space for the earnest supplication which precedes this passage to Him who only can support the mind in this dread conflict." But we must pass by this as well as some other interesting passages to give one extract more; which comprises a pathetic apostrophe to the Sophist, and incidentally adverts by a poetical transition to the sufferings, the fortitude, and the faith of the lamented daughter of our monarch—to her whose name is not yet forgotten by her affectionate countrymen, while her youth, beauty, and untimely end, have become a standing national topic "to point a moral" as well as "to adorn" a melancholy "tale."

"And say, cold Sophist! if by thee bereft
Of that high hope, to misery what were left?
But for the vision of the days to be,
But for the Comforter, despis'd by thee,
Should we not wither at the Chastener's look,
Should we not sink beneath our God's rebuke,
When o'er our heads the desolating blast,
Fraught with inscrutable decrees, hath pass'd,
And the stern power who seeks the noblest prey,
Hath call'd our fairest and our best away?
Should we not madden, when our eyes behold
All that we lov'd in marble stillness cold,
No more responsive to our smile or sigh,
Fix'd-frozen-silent-all mortality?
But for the promise, all shall yet be well,
Would not the spirit in its pangs rebel,
Beneath such clouds as darken'd, when the hand
Of wrath lay heavy on our prostrate land,.
And Thou, just lent thy gladden'd isles to bless,
Then snatch'd from earth with all thy loveliness,

With all a nation's blessings on thy head,

O England's flower! wert gather'd to the dead?
But Thou didst teach us. Thou to ev'ry heart
Faith's lofty lesson didst thyself impart!

When fled the hope thro' all thy pangs which smil'd,
When thy young bosom, o'er thy lifeless child,
Yearn'd with vain longing-still thy patient eye,
To its last light, beam'd holy constancy!
Torn from a lot in cloudless sunshine cast,
Amidst those agonies-thy first and last,
Thy pale lip, quivering with convulsive throes,
Breath'd not a plaint--and settled in repose;
While bow'd thy royal head to Him, whose power
Spoke in the fiat of that midnight hour,
Who from the brightest vision of a throne,
Love, glory, empire, claim'd thee for his own,
And spread such terror o'er the sea-girt coast,
As blasted Israel, when her ark was lost!

"It is the will of God!'-yet, yet we hear
The words which clos'd thy beautiful career,
Yet should we mourn thee in thy blest abode,
But for that thought-' It is the will of God!'
Who shall arraign th' Eternal's dark decree,
If not one murmur then escap'd from thee?
Oh! still, tho' vanishing without a trace,
Thou hast not left one scion of thy race,
Still may thy memory bloom our vales among,
Hallow'd by freedom, and enshrin'd in song!
Still may thy pure, majestic spirit dwell,
Bright on the isles which lov'd thy name so well,
E'en as an angel, with presiding care,

To wake and guard thine own high virtues there."
(P. 30-33.)

We trust the specimens which we have produced of this lady's genius, will help to multiply her readers and admirers, and we are well persuaded that if she does not speedily take her station among the most popular of our modern bards, it will be because the sources of popularity have received a contamination from the vicious purposes to which poetry has been abused, but from which and above which the muse of Mrs. Hemans is at the farthest remove, and at the purest elevation.

ART. XV.-A System of Mineralogy, in which Minerals are arranged according to the Natural History Method. By Robert Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural History, in the University of Edinburgh. 3 vols. 8vo. Constable and Co. Edinburgh.

THOSE who have attended to the progress of natural history in Europe during the last hundred years, must have observed that the opinions of scientific people have been principally divided on the subject of classification. Linnæus set a great example in the department of botany, the principles of which have been followed more or less closely in other branches of natural knowledge: and as the grounds of his arrangement proceeded upon certain arbitrary views of the properties of the vegetable kingdom, in opposition to what may be called the natural affinities of the several tribes or families, the botanical system of this great man has, in reference to the principle now stated, been usually described as artificial, and sometimes as unnatural. The French botanists accordingly have all along opposed themselves to Linnæus and his disciples; maintaining that in all the productions of nature there are obvious bonds of union, or, at least, certain inherent properties, by which they may be distributed and arranged in classes. Tournefort, and the Jussieus, have exerted no small degree of ingenuity in attempting to discover these relations, and to erect upon them a natural system, with the view of superseding the more technical one of the Swedish philosopher. It is not our object at present to point out, either how far these attempts have succeeded, or what may have been the cause of their partial failure. We merely refer to them as an example of that difference of opinion which has prevailed among naturalists, as to the proper ground of a scientific arrangement in one division of their pursuits.

There is reason to apprehend that we are now about to witness a similar schism among the cultivators of mineralogy: and it is to give some account of the grounds of this controversy, its progress, and, we may venture to add, its leading merits, that we have undertaken the review of a book which has already reached the third edition.

We may premise, then, that the productions of the material world present themselves to our observation in two different points of view: first, as having certain properties available to the chemist, the cook, or the manufacturer; and secondly, as exhibiting a number of other less essential qualities, according

to which they may be classed in the imagination, and even defined in systematic order into groups, principal and subordinate. If the constituent or essential properties of a substance, animal, vegetable, or mineral, were those by which, so to speak, it most readily characterized itself to the senses, there could be no question that these are the properties upon which also every systematic classification ought to be founded. But, if it shall appear that we may be intimately acquainted with every fact in the economy of such substances, which can be made known by the anatomist or chemist, and yet supplied with no means whereby to distinguish to the eye one class of them from another, it will unquestionably follow that we ought to seek for some less equivocal ground whereon to establish characters for dividing them into orders, genera, and species. Nay, further, if it be admitted that a complete analysis or decomposition of a substance is necessary, according to any given method of philosophizing, for ascertaining its place in the system to which it is supposed to belong; it must certainly appear desirable to have recourse to some other plan, whereby the characteristics of the specimen may be determined, and itself at the same time saved from destruction. In support of these inferences, it may be sufficient to observe, that any branch of natural history which has hitherto been successfully pursued, has followed, to a considerable extent, the system of external character. Botany was nothing more than a confused collection of facts, until the Linnæan method of discrimination introduced into it an intelligible arrangement; and no one has ever thought of studying zoology upon any other principle than that which determines the classes, orders, genera, and species of animals, from the outward configuration of their bodies.

Mineralogy has not yet been acknowledged as a separate and independent science; on which account, it has never completely enjoyed all the advantages of the plan of arrangement and investigation so happily applied to botany. It has all along been regarded as a part of chemistry; and, of consequence, has been subjected to the particular rules of analysis by which that science prosecutes its researches. Minerals, accordingly, have in all cases been described, not as they appear to the senses, but as certain compounds of earths or metals in union with particular acids; and, in this way, the learner was taught to know a mineral substance, by finding out the ingredients of which it was composed, instead of deriving its characters from such qualities as respect the sight, the touch, the taste, or the smell. The chemist never rests satisfied with the knowledge of external properties. It is not enough for him that he has made himself master of the colour, weight, hardness, or form of any parti